Firelight
by hallowedmaiden
Summary: Light can hold many things, the light in a person's eyes, the light from a fire, the light of the universe...the dazzling light of diamonds...but the strongest light of all is that which glows within a soul, a blinding light when matched with a soul's mate, with a bird of the same feather, with a mind of the same fabric, with a heart of the same freedom. M for future chapters.
1. Firelight

_**This one is a story that I cooked up in a chat of all places. I would like to give credit to die-just-a-little over on Tumblr for co-creating the concept for this, as,** **without** **her, it would have never existed. It is set during CotBP for now, but will progress to moments during DMC, and perhaps AWE. We'll see. Hope everyone likes it, and as always, I love to hear your thoughts!**_

 _ **Note:** A reviewer reviewed and said it seemed strange that Lizzie mentions only knowing Jack for 10 minutes, when they had 'spent the island together', but in fact, this story starts out during the night that Jack got arrested at the Blacksmith shop in Curse. She is sitting in her bedroom thinking about him after the events of the day. Hope that clears it up. I would have responded to them privately, but they reviewed as a guest._

* * *

The firelight glittered in the air of the room, dazzled her open and bright eyes, the heat from the flames washing across her skin. A burning that sunk into her body, wrapped around her limbs... _cinders_ , _ashes_ , such a bright light that touched everything she was looking at...she wanted to arch her body, to yell into the open window, to thrash around... _had never felt consumption like this before_...a fever, dangerous and otherworldly, prickling at her...the sweat had long made her bed sheets damp underneath her... _fever_ , making her skin glow red, a blush that intensified with each labored breath she struggled to force out of her mouth. Yet, they did leave her parted lips, each one decompressing her chest to only drive her to emptiness, and then inhaled back in to remind her of the fire that was in her chest too…

...from the fire in the room, the firelight, the brightness, everything was so _bright_ …

So alive.

Beautiful, the bed sheets with their intricate embroidery, _beautiful_...the way the cloth wrinkled and curved, reminding her of the paintings of deserts she had seen...had always wondered how _hot_ they were, how the sand would feel between her toes, the wind on her face...the sun beating down on the top of her head...the shadows in the room dancing and bouncing around the walls, _floor_ , across the ceiling…

It was the firelight.

The energy from the flames that was making her feel like this, _wild_ , as though her soul might climb out of her body with her breath and dance with the shadows, like her blood might float out of her skin to mingle with the ashes of her corpse as it combusted...her bones were melting, her heart was aching, _twisting_ , trying to find something, some cure for this madness.

But there was none, no cure, no help, _nothing_. She was confined to this bed, unable to escape the growing blaze, the terror of the...maybe she didn't want a cure...maybe she liked this sickness, this wanting. Wanting of what... _of what_ …

She wanted life, she wanted _something_ , everything _, a dazzling pile of diamonds, a drink from the freshest stream of water, to smell roses, to throw her hands up to the night sky and collect the stars..._ she wanted to _see_ , to _know_ , to _feel_... _wanted to step into the high fire and let it carry her over the edge into the black space of damnation and hysteria._

Her chest heaved once more, and then again, sweat prickling there in the valley between her breasts, even with the open window, it was so _hot_ , the cool air felt _warm_ , possessed...her legs ached with the urge to use them, to run through the town not caring if her feet caught on the stones in the street...she wanted to run _somewhere_ , to spin in circles until the entire world around her would never stop spinning...until she spun into another world where none of this mattered and she could have everything she wanted and it was all at her fingertips.

Where the firelight burned so bright that it was brighter than the sun on a summer day, where there were no rules, no _standards_ , no one to tell her she _couldn't_ or that it wasn't _proper_ …

A swallow, then another, sticking in her throat as it convulsed...her eyes slammed shut, the impression of the room leaving strange blurry images in the darkness of her eyelids, and she squeezed them tighter until it hurt, but it still wasn't even enough, everything was still so _chaotic_ around her, the entire world was going up in flames.

Then she opened her eyes to let the world back in.

There was no fire, no firelight, no burning, only the soft moonlight from the open window, a blue, the color of a sky in a painting, slashes of blue everywhere, on the edges of the furniture, on the floorboards…

Her bed was an ocean of blue, the sheets were _moving_ , her eyes following the lines and curves of the wrinkles... _waves_...but they weren't moving…

Everything jumbled a bit when she shook her head to clear it, to... _what?_

 _The firelight_.

 _Burning_ …

It was coming from inside, from her heart, from her soul, coursing through her blood, binding to her bones…

... _she_ was the firelight, she was glowing with the force of it, ascending into a state of fever that made her feel _insane_...there was a poltergeist inside of her wreaking havoc, squeezing its ghostly hands around her heart, pumping it frantically, making her skin awash with gooseflesh, turning every thought into a racing bird, streaking across the sky...or a shooting star, falling back to earth in a shower of death and the end times.

The end times... _how silly_ of her to compare this to end times, like it was some kind of apocalypse...the impression left on her skin, on her body, like the feeling of the leather, the cloth...the _heat_ , the...like it had melted onto her in all its glory…

It may very well kill her... _end times_ , more like time for it to end, but it never was _, would never end_ , was as permanent as the color blue looking like blue, as the day and night, as water and fire and ice and ash and light and dark... _it…_

 _It..._ what a non-descriptive word, yet...capable of holding so much meaning, hidden meaning, especially when _it_ didn't even mean it, when _it_ was just a substitution for a far more dangerous word...one that was surely responsible for this transformation from woman into something inhuman... _it_ , she wished it was just an _it_ , that it was something, an object, a concept, something she could walk away from…

But it wasn't an _it_...it was a hurricane, swirling and deadly, destroying her piece by piece...its winds piercing her mind with dangerous force, so sudden, so swift…

A jagged strike of lightning atop her very head, sending the shock all the way down into the ground beneath her, and further to the core of the earth, only to come back up and race around her...it was _made_ of fire, and lovely poison, and flesh... _hot_ unyielding flesh, sun browned…

Poison or potion, poison or _allure_ , _toxin_ , beautiful, damning...elevating... _seduction_...which one of those things was responsible for the trembling in her hands, the rush of blood through her heart, the metamorphosis…

It was terrifying.

It wasn't an it.

 _It_ was a _he_.

And _he_ was firelight too.

 _He._

She didn't dare think or speak his name, his name alone having the power to twist her insides into lethal knots...but his face...and even his face was haunting her more thoroughly than any ghost or demon could...so _sinful_ , so…spellbinding, stupefying...he may be a _he_ , but nothing could convince her he was human in that moment...not when the entire fabric of the world had melted away…

 _Before_ , when she had been regurgitating water from her lungs onto the dock, _before_ , when her life had been a series of windows into freedom only for it to be ripped away from her, going _years, months, days, hours_ back...she could only see the staleness, the mundane, her life had held no color...no artist would enjoy painting it...as it only held gray, melancholy, and a mourning black, mourning for a life she would never have…

 _Then_ , his face. Above her. As though he had been sent to her, summoned by herself, by how hard she had willed it in her fantasies and wild thoughts during the dead of night...how hard she had willed him to come...to sweep her away...the stories of him…

But the reality...the water dripping from his chin onto her chest, the droplets of water clinging to his tan cheeks, framed by a mane of tangled black hair...black as a crow, black as _sin_...exotic...a blend of spices and far away things she had only dreamed of, a _power_ in his face that was exuded to her...trancelike, her eyes only had time for his, those beautiful sparkling depths that spoke of such a _history_ , such a _life_...one that she wanted to know all of in that precious space of a few seconds he had looked down upon her. _There's time_ she had wanted to say. _We could forget about the soldiers, my father, forget that we are where we are..._ but the taste, the peek she had gotten into something so _peregrine_ , so surreal, it was enough to change the very essence that she was made of.

It was enough to make her see her life as though it was a different life, as though someone else had been in her body until then, someone sad, _lonely_ , just _being_ , instead of living.

 _She couldn't go back_.

So where could she go?

 _Go_ , as though a person could be a destination, a _home_ , a goal...maybe she could shut her eyes again and go anywhere, into the sea, into the sky, into some other life where she wasn't being tormented.

Because she had been tormented the very second his beautiful eyes connected with hers, _what had he seen in hers?_ A soul trying to fly, a scream of _see me_ , _see what I am showing, see what I cannot see within myself, know what I am made of, read it, take it…._

 _...take me._

A wise person might tell her she was foolish, she was silly. No man could be worth so much, no man could be so all-consuming...it was _sorcery_ , magick, something evil, tainted...then that person was undeserving of being called wise, because all she could feel was the purity of freedom, the sail of herself upward on a sparrow's wing, attached to it for as long as it tolerated her presence.

 _Forever, hopefully_ , some small voice inside of her whispered.

Perhaps there was firelight in the room, perhaps she was so far gone that she had flown beyond being able to see it, into a realm where she could only _feel._

Sparrow. Just a bird, a _creature_...small, unthreatening…

 _No_.

 _Perhaps_ , perhaps she could permit herself to think of his last name...to gaze upon the images it held, a mighty ship, a depth, _power_...yet something intimate, something...sultry...a story written in a language that she could barely understand, yet her body and her mind and her soul seemed perfectly fluent in it…

She protested because he had _saved her_...she protested because he had _saved_ her...it was a nice reason, a _safe_ reason...one that she could almost believe if she didn't know herself and the depravity that had evidently been inside her and awoken...she had protested because he _saved_ her...it was _not_ because she couldn't bear the thought of him disappearing, flitting away just when he had only been in her life for so short of a time... _not long enough..._ needed more time with him…

She had protested because _...because_ somehow the color of the water, the smells in the air, the feel of her own body...the distinct thought of _so that's what it all means, that is what it all is supposed to feel like_...fresh, daunting, the exactness, the rightness of it all...the sudden urge to run through town for an entirely different reason, to gaze upon everything with new eyes, eyes that had now seen freedom in the form of a person.

She had protested...had charged in front of twenty Navy Soldiers, in front of her father, in front of everything she was _supposed_ to stay out of, because _nothing_ , not the taste of delicious food, not the exquisite feel of a good night's sleep, not the soothing of hot water in a bath, not the richness of chocolate, or the delicate charm of a violin... _none_ of it set her heart and mind alight like the... _like…_

Like _him._

Awash with color and something so _intoxicating_.

And protesting was the least that she had wanted to do to him, _for him_.

Hadn't the foggiest idea what she meant by that, _knew nothing that she wanted to know_ , and knew not how to understand, to learn...to know what he was thinking when he had looked down at her, with a strange wonder in his eyes, like he was looking at a rare creature that he didn't know how to deal with, or that he was seeing his own intoxication…

 _Then_...a sound, the most...powerful thing she had ever heard, _chocolate_ if chocolate had a sound...a storm, smoke, the growl and huskiness of a sleeping dragon, a sound laced with a million different shades of stories, experiences, a million different shades of him, that she could _see_ …

 _His voice_.

' _Where did you get that?'_

Only five words, five common simple words...yet his voice transformed them into a spell designed to make her chest tighten, make her mouth go dry, and send her heart into a panic all its own, simultaneously trying to speak to him and escape her body to jump into the ocean and swim with the fish.

 _To say what?_

Maybe to answer his question, or maybe to ask a hundred of her own... _where did you come from, who are you, why, when…_

Even as they had both risen from the dock, her with a comforting blanket around her and him with a sword being brandished at him, her eyes had been fixed on his form, undeciding about where to look...every spot _dangerous_ , yet every spot equally attractive.

' _Ah_ , _Jack Sparrow is it?'_

That lightning again...being summoned forth just from his spoken name... _no_ , couldn't think about his name, because if she thought about his name...she would think about things beyond his name…

The sea could have disappeared, the sky could have turned into fire, Jesus Christ himself could have walked onto the dock, and she would have had absolutely no idea that any of it was happening at that moment. She had barely paid attention to James, the Navy, her father, the fact that she had just survived almost drowning, all of it had been about as important as her morning tea.

In the space of two minutes that she had been graciously given to fit in nineteen years of near-manic obsession with pirates... _actually seeing a pirate before her_...looking at him, she had gone through questions faster than she could remember them... _trinkets, where did you get them? Where is your ship? What about your stories? Why are you a pirate? Is Jack Sparrow your real name? I've had fantasies-_

 _Well_ , maybe not that. That was kept locked away.

It ended there anyway because her father had proclaimed that he was to be hanged as soon as James revealed him to be a pirate. And some wild notion that it was her job to save his life entered her head, and she had abandoned the blanket to charge after the men about to shackle him.

 _Good deeds_ , good deeds...bad deeds, semi-good deeds, semi-bad deeds...what did it all mean in the end anyway? He had saved her life, if it hadn't been for him, she would be a corpse on the bottom of the ocean. Did that mean nothing to anyone?

' _This man saved my life!'_

Except that she struggled with the word _man_ to describe him. _Sorcerer, inhuman, otherworldly,_ any of those seemed more appropriate…

And she had thought that maybe her challenge to her father and to James would actually sway them to _not_ hang a notorious most-wanted pirate. Her _protest_.

The _event_ , the happening...in which she was manhandled...her _father_ had made a rather large deal out of it…" _you could have been killed_ "..." _pirates are dangerous!"..._

Any sane woman...not that she _wasn't_ sane...would have probably been terrified...would have thought to _herself_ first that it was a dangerous notorious pirate, rather than being told after the fact...the notion that she could have been harmed _should_ have been her main concern...rather than being reminded of it later…

' _Finally…'_

Perhaps she ought to try her hand at stage acting, she figured. Maybe she could be Persephone, or maybe a Shakespeare story...because surely pretending to act _scared_ while being throttled by a pirate would be impressive to most anyone.

Pretending... _pretending_ , it had started the moment he had jerked her back with the chain around her neck...a thrill of excitement...some kind of madness no doubt... _finally, something exciting, finally I have met a pirate_.

Not just any pirate, but _Jack Sparrow_.

She really was sane. Mostly.

The fact, the _notion_ , that he was holding his pistol to her head had been entirely lost on her...for reasons that she had tried to not think about... _tried and failed_.

 _Don't let them see, don't let them see that you want nothing more than to turn around and beg him to take you with him...act scared, act angry, act offended, for god's sake act like you were just accosted by a dangerous pirate…_

None of it had worked.

Especially when he had spun her around to face him.

Most men, she thought, looked like _men_ , like normal men, like _people_...they had a face that you might glance at, maybe remember bits and pieces...and forget the next day.

But _Jack_.

Not Jack.

It really wasn't _fair_ for him to have a face like that.

 _How dare you hold a gun to my head, take me hostage, and yet, make me think of nothing else besides you?_

But she hadn't said that to him...perhaps the lightning strike that didn't exist...the one that had hit her square on the top of her head when...perhaps it had fried her brains.

Surely it wasn't the deprivation of oxygen to her brain, nor the frantic pace of her heart, that betraying organ...because the frantic pace wasn't _fear_ or _worry,_ or _panic_...it was…

...the same thing she might feel when looking upon molten gold, or the finest chocolate, or the most dazzling diamond…

... _desire_.

Desire was the poison he filled her with...that was his spell, his sorcery...her _ailment_...and it hadn't ever been stronger than when she had gazed into his face as he held a gun to her head and forced her to arm him with his effects.

 _To arm him._

 _With his effects._

 _Putting her very close and very personal with the rest of his body_.

It was a wonder that she hadn't dropped his effects all over the bloody dock.

Desire to _see_ what he was hiding underneath the white shirt, the vest, the...everything she had felt, every hard plane of lean muscle pressed against her curves...only melded to her for a precious few moments...before she was placing his hat on his head... _his grin_ , of course she remembered his grin...almost like he _knew_ the carnival taking place inside of her body.

Over, done, stopped, finished...spun around again...then pushed forwards, and he was _gone_. But his escape was not to be. _Nearly_. He had _nearly_ managed to avoid capture. But now he was sitting in a cell awaiting the gallows.

And she was sitting on a bed wanting nothing more than to have him _in the bed with her_.

 _Lord_.

Jack Sparrow.

 _Jack Sparrow_.

 _Captain_ Jack Sparrow.

What was that about not permitting herself to think his full name?

Firelight...maybe firelight was too paltry, too _tame_...because the warmth in her chest now, the heat in her body...like she was dying inside and coming to life at the same time…

…and she had only been in his presence for a total of ten bloody minutes. His list of crimes against her was long already, making her wring her hands like a madwoman...making her struggle to breathe properly, setting her skin on fire...and...something she hadn't yet experienced before this night...something that she hadn't dared to name, for it was the worst crime of all of them…

She felt... _aroused_.

Maybe he deserved to be hanged for that. But then she might as well be hanged with him because, in a dazzling and soaring moment of terrifying clarity, she understood that she would _die_ anyway without having more of him, without another adventure into the dark forest of his presence, where anything could jump out and accost her…

Aroused...it was more pain than pleasure...a _possession_...she was shivering, but not from the _cold_...there was no cold...trembling…

Sweeping her wide gaze around the dark room, noticing the angular lines, the spots of shadow and light, it was all so _sharp_ , so clear...a magical land of secrets and truths...but that wasn't the room...perhaps she hadn't even been looking at the room...maybe the blue sheets and the blue light, the darkness, the light…

It was a strange balance between her _mind_ and the netherworld, the chaotic energy coming from somewhere…

Her body felt like it was rising to meet it, rising to some kind of peak, a combustion, shattering…

A puff of air left her mouth when her gaze swung to the door...memorizing the lines in it, the elegant stretch of white from floor to near the ceiling, but it wasn't white, it was bathed in blue, just like her mind was surely bathed in red and gold, black, and colors that didn't exist yet, ones without names…

 _Madness_ , she told herself. The ones with names, with _places_...they were far more sinister. The soft red of a worn bandana, the smoky black of kohl, of a neat mustache, the seashell white shirt that covered skin so perfectly caramel...the bursts of color throughout his raven hair... _beads_ , trinkets...his entire being was a story, a different land…

And it was all going to die tomorrow in the gallows.

" _No_ …"

It took her a moment to realize that it was her voice protesting...that the involuntary noise held so _much_ …

Her feet hit the floor before her brain caught up with them, a force that she had no control over carrying her to the door, the cool metal of the doorknob enclosed within her fingers before she even knew she had reached for it.

 _Madness..._ but at that moment she didn't care.

In that moment of insanity, a twinkling thought of _yes_ raced through her, and throwing everything to the wind...her rationality, her caution…

 _Yes_.

She needed to see him again.

 _He needed to see her again._

 _They needed to see each other,_ to fix and understand and make sense of this storm that surely was permeating the sky above her, rocking the sea, startling the forest animals and making the birds flutter in their trees nervously...making her ache in places that startled and excited her…

And if she ended up dying down there by his cell, a death of body, mind...a death of fulfillment, then it would be a happy death, a deserved one...this depravity had to have some kind of consequence...because if both of them had to die, at least one death could have some kind of damn meaning.

Quietly swinging the door open, a draft of cold air made her shake, but there was a smile on her face, a smile of satisfaction...one of finally doing _what she wanted_ because she _wanted it_.

Wanted it, him, this, with him, wanted him with her…

And if this all-encompassing ache followed her into the afterlife when his black smokey gaze and full smirking lips were attacking her to kill, she would give herself up to it without a second of protest.

And through the door she went to her salvation and damnation, to a man that she had known for the space of ten minutes, yet with whom she felt like she had spent twelve past lifetimes with, seeing all of the firelight in the world.


	2. A Deathless Death

_**Chapter 2, from Jack's POV this time! :) As always, I love to know what you think! :)**_

* * *

After awhile, the prospect of impending death becomes almost like... _an old friend_.

A grin spread across his mouth at the thought of trying to explain that to someone. Perhaps he would explain it in their language...paint death as a dancing partner in a ballroom, swinging away for a little while to let you enjoy the rest of the event, and then appearing again to remind you that no matter how many other people you dance with, no matter what you talk about, or how much food you eat...what you're wearing, where you came from, where you are going...your dancing partner will always end up being death.

 _Death waltzing and strutting around a dance floor in a big black robe and...ha._

 _Though_ , it did matter what sort of dress wear death wore when he came to dance with you.

An unsuspected bullet... _or a suspected one, depending_...not very elegant, but quick. Usually. Sometimes, a bullet will just leave you with two holes in your chest, a lot of pain and blood, and a surge of regretting the entire last five, ten, _thirty minutes of your life. Or all of it_ right at that moment when you _think_ you are going to die.

A _blade. Plenty of experience with those_. Plenty of scars...a sword fight, with all of the blocks and parries and intricate footwork...they can _look_ elegant...yet the consequences are rarely so, and rarely proceed straight to fatality.

Not that bullets do, but... _far more likely._

Sometimes all a blade can do is make you wish you were dead as you stagger around the deck of a ship, clutching a bleeding wound...but when a blade did land a finishing blow...a clean pierce through the gut…

The ephemeral time, when death has been handed to you...those few grim seconds...there is no pain, no regrets, anything and everything stops mattering...life feels sweeter than it ever has...until it all crumbles and the blackness starts to set in...your brain tortures you with what it can…seeing, hearing, _feeling_...they all become enemies against the dying...

But sometimes death operates on a slow clock...a slow dance around the ballroom...there is no wound, no flash of a blade or scream of a bullet…

The times of waiting, of _thinking_...they belong to criminals that have finally met their end...that have been sentenced under the word of the law...where the world is against them and they are sitting in a cell, knowing that tomorrow is their last look at the world...that tomorrow is the last time anyone will look at them and see _life_...see their history, see their presence in the world...knowing that after tomorrow, there won't be any more tomorrows.

Abstract... _one day I might feel the noose...one day I might get shot..._ until that day happens and the dawning conclusion that you never were really prepared to be sentenced to death... _thought_ you were...but the moment it happens...you always want _more time...just a little more time…_

 _...knowing that there won't be any more time._

 _Life and death are the only things that can really take power away from a man, and when it does take it, it takes it far beyond the reach of getting it back._

He liked to think that he had done enough, seen enough...but he had grievances to air...things to finish...and there was never an end to what could be seen and done…

At least he would be remembered... _a small consolation, that..._ remembered as a criminal...as a bad man...as...as a _pirate_ captain…but remembered nonetheless.

Hard to care how you are remembered when you're dead.

 _Really?_

 _Obviously, because you're...dead._

 _But you can care about how you're remembered while you're alive…_

 _If I really cared about how I was remembered, I wouldn't be what I am._

 _And what are you?_

 _A...pirate...where the bloody fuck is this going?_

 _Are you just a pirate?_

 _Soon to be a dead pirate._

 _You could try and escape._

 _Right, because my impressive list of talents now includes prying bars apart with my bare hands. I can also walk through stone walls, speak to dogs in their language, and I possess the miraculous power of convincing guards that I'm a completely innocent person who deserves to be set free._

 _You've done nothing but sit here and think since you were thrown inside._

 _I do that a lot. Sitting and thinking._

 _Maybe you should have read more books._

… _what a nice thought, reading books. Perfect time to bring up doing anything outside of this cell._

 _Try and escape._

… _we've been over this…_

 _That woman...she could break you out._

 _...maybe talking to the dog isn't such a bad idea after all…_

 _...but the girl…_

 _Have you completely lost your mind?_

Then he realized that he was asking about the mental state of his own mind, and shut down that train of thought.

And the prospect of facing death...of standing there while his list of crimes were read out for everyone to find more reasons to damn him...of watching every precious moment pass…

 _Before_ , he had thought of being hanged as a blazing glory...as a fitting end to his debauchery...but now, the stark reality of it was setting in...it was just an _end_...nothing came after, and nothing that he had done mattered anymore. His boots would join the pile...a pile of vanished names and vanished histories…

As he sat there, counting the bars of the cell, then counting them again...and again...tracing the stonework on the floor...trying to create images in the dirt...he finally understood how fleeting time was...how much it should be appreciated...but regardless of what tomorrow held, or what now held...his death was going to happen.

So why did he feel entirely alive?

Another smile spread across his mouth...though he wasn't sure why because this... _dancing partner_...this face of death...this one was the most dangerous of all.

The _deathless_ death.

A bend of your road in an entirely different direction...a ripple in the pond, a... _newness_ , the spice of a new adventure, of something that thoroughly set on fire everything that you had told yourself...everything that you built to avoid... _it_.

It….what was it...he could think of a hundred words to call it...a _focus_...an... _attraction..._ intrigue...a strange pull towards another person...where he could clearly divide his life into two halves…

... _before_ and _after_ …

 _You nearly became a hero._

 _...hero? Because I didn't let a woman die?_

 _You did save her._

 _...because I didn't want her to die._

 _Maybe she deserved it._

 _Doubt it._

 _Maybe you deserve it._

 _Well, fuck you too._

 _Nevermind. Why did you do it?_

Truth is, he didn't bloody fucking know. A streak of good, fate, suddenly he had puppet strings and someone was pulling at them...

 _Are you deaf? I didn't want her to die._

 _You don't even know her._

 _So? And neither of the idiots could swim._

 _So you were forced to save her._

 _I'm not forced to do anything._

 _You're still in this cell._

 _Have I said fuck you yet?_

...before he had dove into the water after a woman that he _didn't_ know before he had tugged her dress off, before he had split open her corset like a clamshell…

And the narrative that he had been circling in his head since then was... _why is she special, she's just a woman...rather plain, a bit haughty…_

 _Haughty_ , well that one was certainly true...but the rest…

 _You told yourself a long time ago that you were never going to get attached._

 _I know._

 _But you have._

 _No, I bloody haven't._

 _Good, because you only knew her for ten minutes._

 _Ten glorious minutes._

 _See?_

 _Oh for hell and damnation...okay, maybe she had something…_

 _What?_

 _If I knew that…_

 _You called her plain a second ago._

 _I can lie to myself sometimes._

 _You lie to everyone and yourself all the time._

 _Fuck you. Again._

 _Am I wrong?_

 _...I suppose not._

 _So was not being attached to her a lie?_

That depended on the criteria for "attached". If he went with being attached by association, then saving her life made him attached to her, her attached to him. If he chose the more dangerous…

 _...Perhaps. Perhaps not._

 _Let's go with perhaps. So you forget about her._

 _Sure, let's try that._

 _You have been._

 _Oh...right._

 _Maybe 'perhaps not' then._

He had never been very good at forgetting about things that he became attached to.

Just normally, he didn't get attached right before being sentenced to death.

 _Your fault, that is._

 _What?_

 _We've been over this. You saved her._

 _So you want me to just shrug and carry on the next time someone is drowning?_

 _There isn't going to be a next time, thanks to Jack Sparrow the hero._

Captain. _Fuck_.

 _You're not Captain of anything right at this moment._

 _...I'm blaming it on whoever or whatever made her fall._

 _Yes, deflect the blame onto something else. You're good at that._

If he chose the more dangerous...being attached... _attracted_ to her...then...the gods up in heaven or wherever they were must be having a great laugh looking down at him talking to himself mentally, wondering whether he was or was not...when the whole thing didn't matter anyway because he was bloody going to be dead soon.

He just didn't _feel_ like he was going to die. Instead, it was like something had been flicked on inside of him...some dead and buried part of himself was stirring...he couldn't decide if it was a mercy to feel like that before execution, or a cruelty.

 _Ten bloody minutes_. If he didn't count the time that he had spent dragging her off the ocean floor, ripping her dress off, and hoisting her up onto the dock.

A few seconds to shove the idiot squawking 'not breathing' out of the way, a few seconds to slice through her corset, water spewing out of her mouth immediately, and then only a second more to feel something that he had never felt before...when he looked into her eyes, when he saw that she saw him, her eyes had widened just a little…

He'd forgotten, just for a moment, everything that had happened just before, forgot why he was even in Port Royal, forgot his plan, forgot about his pistol, about Barbossa, forgot to breathe even...the rest of the world could have shriveled up and died for all he cared.

 _Something_ happened, something he couldn't explain, or understand...and he was covering it up by squabbling with himself...trying to ignore the ridiculous idea that he had…

It was only _ten bloody minutes._

 _Surely it takes longer than that._

Well, that moment when their eyes connected was only a few seconds too...the way she had looked at him... _not_ like he was a dangerous criminal, _not_ like he was something to be shunned or maligned...but like she had suddenly seen a unicorn burst forth from the water.

Like she was _fascinated_ with him.

 _As if you hadn't been fascinated with her too_.

There had been such... _fire_ in her eyes. She was a wild woman, living in a cage, being forced to drink tea and wear corsets...he saw himself in her eyes, a passion to learn, to know...to be _free_.

And a wild notion, one that... _that what?_ That frustrated him, excited him...sent something burning inside of his chest...a wild notion that _he_ wanted to be the one to nurture that passion in her, to show her the world...to see the sunset reflected in his eyes as she stood on the-

 _Hold on a fucking minute._

 _This wasn't supposed to happen._

 _He loved the sea._

 _And the Pearl._

 _...and that was it._

 _Well, looks like your brain doesn't care about that._

 _Are you suggesting…_

 _Can't close your heart off forever._

 _I didn't. I just said-_

 _Can't close it off to a living breathing human forever._

 _Well…_

 _You haven't let her name in yet...I wonder why that is…_

Her name...her stupid name…

 _I doubt you need reminding that her last name is also a bird…_

... _No, I didn't._

Elizabeth Swann.

... _Lizzie._

He reached up and pulled his tricorne hat further down his face, taking a heavy breath in and shoving it out in a frustrated sigh.

Of all the fucking women, it had to be one that he was absolutely, under no circumstances, _ever_ , going to be allowed near again regardless of whether he was in prison or not.

 _You could sneak into her bedroom._

 _Did you not just hear that I'm in fucking prison?_

 _You know, that thing where there are bars, a key somewhere…_

 _The dog has it. Could get the key, and then sneak into her bedroom._

 _Yeah, I am just going to waltz right into the governor's mansion, say "cheerio" to the doorman, sweep my hat off in a greeting, salute her father when he figures out a notorious pirate has just escaped jail and is now in his house, and then skip right up the stairs to his daughter's room._

 _...could just climb into her window._

 _From fucking where? I can't fly._

 _...Pity._

 _Besides, sneak into her bedroom for what?_

 _...what?_

 _We're assuming here that she wouldn't scream, or have me arrested again, or…_

 _The woman put herself between twelve men with guns and her father, and stuffy Norrington to challenge your arrest the first time._

 _A fat lot of good that did._

 _You're the one that tried to strangle her._

 _Strangle her? I was in control of that chain the entire time._

 _So now you're attached to her, attracted, and you_ care _for her._

 _I'm sorry?_

 _You care for her._

 _It was ten bloody fucking minutes._

 _And yet you're spending your last hours obsessing over her._

 _I'm not obsessing._

He wasn't thinking about what her curves looked like under her nearly see-through shift, he absolutely did not care about the honey color of her hair...how soft her lips looked...or the depth of her eyes...he didn't care about any of that.

 _Fuck._

 _You're also never going to see her again._

 _I'm sorry, do you hate me or something?_

 _So you do admit that you are attracted to her?_

Look out the window, watch the sea, listen to the sea, listen to the birds outside, to the noises of the town, look around the cell again, listen to the irritating snoring coming from the cell next to his... _anything_...

 _Elizabeth. Lizzie. Bess. Lizbeth...love...darling…_ he could call her any of those…

 _Call her them when? In the afterlife? Did he miss where she was sentenced to be hanged too?_

Some door opened off in the distance just then…

 _Maybe it's someone to come and rescue you…_

 _Please don't try and be funny._

 _Well…_

What if she didn't immediately reject him appearing in her bedroom?

Another wild notion...he wanted to tell her stories, wanted to watch her eyes twinkle with fascination...watch her smile and laugh when he told her about…

 _Tell her stories?_

 _Stories…_

 _You would be sneaking into a beautiful woman's bedroom and the first thing you think of is telling her fucking stories?_

 _May I ask what you're implying?_

 _I don't think you have ever told a woman a fucking story in your life._

 _First of all…_

 _Maybe it is a good thing that you're going to hang. Might as well, because a pirate in the beginning stages of falling in love will eventually get killed one way or another._

 _What the fuck did you say?_

 _Which part?_

 _I'm not in love._

 _You want to tell her stories._

 _I'm. Not. In. Love. With. Her._

 _Obsessing, in love, attached, care, attracted...whichever…you're done for is the point._

When did his own mind become so goddamn infuriating?

Women lusted after _him_. He did not lust after _them_.

He did not think about how their lips would feel against his, how soft their skin would feel under his hands, how their body would…

 _Who are you kidding?_

...fine. How _her_ body would move against him, the kind of sounds she would make... _everything he could teach her_ …

In conclusion, he decided just then, he was ill. Sick, deranged, delusional, probably had a fever, was slowly turning into a maniac...there was a headache forming...his fingers were itching to...blood kept heading- _yes,_ something was definitely terribly wrong with him.

Some sound...it was getting closer...had been getting closer for about a minute now…

 _Footsteps._

Then they stopped.

And he realized that his heart was racing. Or maybe it had been doing that the entire time. Fuck all if he knew.

Yes, this kind of death was the worst kind, _deathless_ , because it didn't kill you at all, it just made you feel out of your goddamn mind...nothing made sense anymore, the sky was purple, water was solid, shit tasted good, fire was cold, rum tasted like poison...birds swam, fish flew, humans had eight legs...and his mind had lost the ability to function properly.

" _You're despicable."_

Except...her insult had sounded strangely like...like an invitation, like she wanted him to retort back, wanted to turn it, _them_ , into a game, into something...and then when he had slowly walked her away from stuffy Norrington, she had been...pressing closer to him, like she was silently telling him she was perfectly willing to be kidnapped.

 _Damn her._

 _She was a siren, that had to be it...she had magical powers._

And he had to resist the silly urge to snap his fingers as though he had just arrived at an epiphany.

 _That, or you're just an incredibly hopeless man with terrible timing._

Then he actually snorted out loud.

Hilarious, this whole thing. His grand quest to commandeer a ship to take _his_ ship back had turned into him diving into the ocean after some silly woman who was driving him insane without even being here...then subsequently getting arrested because of saving said woman...getting sentenced to death... _escaping_...getting caught...and now he was here. Thinking about _her_.

 _Wait..._ the footsteps, they had started again. Soft, light against the stone…

" _Well, lookie here, she's come to talk to us criminals…"_

 _...She?_

 _She._

 _...What the hell?_

"Not to _you_ , actually. But a criminal, yes."

" _Ahh, surely you be here to talk to Sparra over there then? Don't know if you'll get much out of him. Silent as the grave, that one."_

"He hasn't said anything?"

" _Well, '_ _e_ _said somethin' about the dog earlier...sounded like 'e had no hope left...then again, he ought not to...don't see him escapin' anytime soon."_

"And you see yourself escaping do you?"

A scattered bit of grunting, and the other voices petered off.

Which left silence for his brain to scream into…

...because there was absolutely no way for _her_ to be standing anywhere in his vicinity. Hallucination, she was. Had to be. There was no way…

"... _Captain...excuse me, Captain Sparrow?"_

The voice in his head suddenly had nothing to say.


	3. Back and Forth

**Chapter 3! Sorry about the wait, I had other commitments for awhile. But I'm back to writing now, so look for another chapter on Scythe's Song soon**!

* * *

Any other man, she thought... _any other_...Zeus, Hades, Hercules...if she were to find herself in Olympia she would wager that she could gaze upon the faces of any god or man there and still not find the beauty that...if she were to walk the streets of Greece, if she traveled to Italy... _nowhere_ would she find a man that looked so damn _sinful_. Like the god and goddesses themselves had crafted him for a single purpose...to seduce the heart, mind, and soul into eternal willing damnation and madness…

There was no other explanation for why she was here...for why the complete and utter consumption of her by him had led her here…

The jail was dark, only lit by the torches on the wall, the shadow and flame dancing together to form a myriad of light and movement on the stone, and everything was lit with a soft orange glow.

Half of his face was hidden, the other half illuminated...a distinct line that traveled right through the center of his lips...his tricorne hat was pulled down over his face, and from what she could see from his expression, it was carefully blank.

In theory, she had thought herself prepared for this...for speaking to him, but now that he was here _, in front of her_...anything and everything that she had was gone like a wisp of smoke...carried out at the same time as her logical reasoning and ability to form a coherent thought.

He _must_ know she was there, he certainly heard her talking to... _them_ , but he was feigning ignorance.

Hadn't said a word, they had told her.

 _Not for long_.

"... _Captain_...excuse me, Captain Sparrow?"

Since _when_ had a woman's voice done such maddening things to him?

She held her breath, watched his face, waited for a reaction... _nothing_...and the stillness of him made her think for a moment that he was sleeping, but then the corner of his mouth twitched, curved up in what she could almost mistake for a small smile.

Hadn't even finished trying to convince himself that she wasn't a figment of his imagination, and he was already wondering what on earth she was doing here, at _night_...

"'S a bit dangerous for you to be wandering around town in the dark, isn't it?"

His _voice_ , like a seduction from a violin made of velvet, twisted with smoke and ash from a fire, that smoke slithering from his finely carved lips into her body, invading every corner of her senses...her eyes closing for the briefest moment to prevent the dilution of his words...her ears becoming sentient themselves to appreciate the melody in his timbre...in his perfect baritone...her fingers wishing to touch him while he whispered in her ear…

What was it that he said?

 _Dangerous?_ Probably. But she hadn't paid any mind to that in her rush…

"The town may be dangerous, but I'm no longer wandering around town. I'm here."

 _Nice to have vocal confirmation, darling._

Something passed through his eyes, a spark of amusement at her answer, a shimmer of curiosity...

"In a jail surrounded by criminals? This is _far_ safer."

"Are you suggesting that you have it in your head to try and harm me? _Again_. Or are you talking about _them_?"

 _Harm you? I didn't intend on hurting you in the first place…_

 _But taking her hostage with a pistol pointed at her head is perfectly acceptable?_

 _Be quiet._

His head tilted down a little first just after her head finished its incline towards the other pirates next to Jack's cell, and then up just enough for her to see his eyes, glittering with such _allure_ that she momentarily forgot they were even having a conversation.

"One might get the idea that you're _asking_ to be harmed again by insinuating yourself here."

"I could always leave if I'm in such _danger_." _What a lie that was_.

 _Please don't_ , and then he was immediately annoyed at how pathetic this whole thing was.

"You're free to go anywhere you like, darling. Myself, on the other hand... _well_ , I can pace around this cell, maybe do a little dance, draw in the dirt, look out the window…"

He was still watching her, his gaze flitting to the hallway beyond her, and then back...there was something else in his eyes that she couldn't name…

"You're right, I am. I could be up in the mansion, safe in bed, reflecting on how a dangerous pirate used me as a hostage to escape-"

"-and yet, here you are, talking to the _dangerous_ pirate. Such a curiosity, that."

"Would you rather me not talk to you?"

 _No. Bugger._

"I'm more surprised that you want to talk to me at all."

The little smile on his lips grew wider. He was _enjoying_ this.

"And why is that?"

"...Aside from the fact that I... _held you hostage,_ as you said...you're a _lady_...and a lady of your nature would hardly be caught dead fraternizing with a criminal."

 _A lady. Hah! If she was a proper lady then he would eat Gibbs. And she was rather lovely when she was annoyed._

It made her remember the feeling of his hard body against hers again, his voice in her ear, the warmth of him...even through the layers of clothing she had felt it, skin imbued with the heat and wickedness of a bonfire.

 _...A lady_?

 _Hardly._

"And you're making assumptions."

The light shifted on his face when he turned towards her a little. "About what, darling?"

Her breath hitched at his endearment. _Darling_. Was it on purpose? Did he call every woman that?

 _He saw the breath lodge in her throat, watched her struggle to exhale. Curious..._

"That I fancy myself to be a _lady_."

Many thought she was a lady, _wanted_ her to be a lady, tried to lead her to ridiculous parties…

"Ahh, a little rebellious, hm?"

A little smile played on her lips, and she looked down, giggling. "I used to pretend that I was a pirate. There was this little lagoon down by the shore. I would sneak down there and...well, swordfight the air with sticks I found."

 _Well, how about that?_

That she had the urge to share with him such an innocent story...it felt like peeking at the sunlight while willingly drowning in a lake of corruption.

He stared at her for a second, and then another, his mouth hanging slightly open in...perhaps in _wonder_ , she thought, before it quirked into a smirk.

"Ahh, the _air_ , such a formidable enemy. And _sticks?_ There couldn't be a finer choice of weapon."

 _Sarcasm_ , complete with a grin on his face…it made everywhere on her tingle.

"It gives a bit of truth to wooden swords," she said, turning to pluck his sword and scabbard off of the wall, unsheathing the blade, watching the torchlight catch and accentuate the angles.

"Careful, that's _sharp_. And _pointy_."

"And I bet you'd like to have it back."

 _Maybe_.

His hand swept in an arc around the cell, the moonlight catching on the couple of rings that sat on his tanned fingers. "Wouldn't do me much good in here. Though I could pretend to be a pirate, like you, and fight the air."

Jack was ridiculously good at making her laugh, she concluded. "You _are_ a pirate."

 _The way she said 'pirate' held no amount of hidden affection for the word_. _Damn_.

A look of faux surprise washed over his face, his gaze leaving her for a moment, then bouncing back with mirth sparkling in his eyes. "You're right, I _am_. Can't believe I somehow forgot that."

"You're _welcome_."

Going silent for a moment to examine the sword, _his_ sword, she suddenly got the overwhelming urge to _know_. "Where did you get it?"

 _Of course, she_ would _want to know..._

"What?... _That_?"

"The sword."

 _How to answer...what answer to give...to spin a tale or to not spin a tale..._

The muscles in his jaw worked as he considered her question. "Why?" he finally asked.

"I don't know, just curious," she replied, slicing the blade through the air in a playful swing. Swords held a certain fascination for her, they had such elegance in the right hands, yet could be so deadly.

 _Could always toy with her..._

"And what if I were to say that I don't remember?"

"I would say that you won't put me off that easily, Captain Sparrow."

As the last syllable of his name passed through her lips, she swung the sword in an arc until the tip of it was pointed at him, a smile on her face.

 _Or maybe she's worth the truth..._

"Mmm...I thought not. Truthfully, it's nothing special. Got it in Tortuga, can't really remember when. Swords to a pirate are a dime a dozen. It's the pistol that is something of value."

' _No additional shots, nor powder…'_

"How can you value your pistol if you only keep one shot in it?"

 _Good memory, Elizabeth...Lizzie._

He watched her, scrutinized her really, for a long moment, his eyes flicking around her face.

 _What_ , Jack? What do you see, why are you looking?

"You...you're awfully forward with someone you've only just met, love."

 _There it was again_. Darling, now love...it messed with her insides just a little bit.

"We haven't just met. We met earlier, it's been several hours since then."

His sword made a noise as she slipped it back into the scabbard to hang it on the wall.

It really felt like she had known him her entire life.

"And you suppose several hours warrants asking personal questions and expecting answers?"

 _Personal questions?_

"I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, but how is that a personal question?"

The answer presented itself before he even had a chance to think.

He was saving the shot.

 _For who?_

"Consider every question you ask me a personal question, Miss Swann. You know nothing about me."

The edge to his tone made a spike of uncertainty rush through her. "...and you're making assumptions again."

A clinking noise was made from the trinkets in his hair when he turned once again to look at her, the humor partially gone from his eyes, replaced with a wariness.

"Am I?" he asked after a moment of silence.

Not allowing the spot of nerves stirring inside to show, she nodded. "I've...read stories about you."

Finally, his body slid off the perch he was sitting on in the corner of the cell, and he came to stand, adjusting his shirt sleeves. "Be that as it may, love. Stories are just that...stories. You've no idea what's truth and what's fiction."

A pause as his hand went to grasp something near his belt, and then flexed while his lips tightened in annoyance. _His pistol._ Habit, probably.

"But, you've sparked my curiosity. What...fantastical tales have you read?"

 _Truth and fiction_...she had suspected that there were fabrications, but him coming right out and confirming it...or was it just another attempted misdirection?

"Nassau, your little vanishing stunt...your ship-"

The words that were going to follow were smothered by the way his head suddenly jerked in her direction, poorly hidden shock in his eyes.

"You...how…"

 _See,_ I do have the power to surprise you, _pirate_. Be careful.

"A merchant sailor was talking about it one day, and I happened to overhear. Not many people know who the original Captain of the Black Pearl was. Barbossa's...reign of terror overshadows you a little, I fear."

He was still staring at her, and his mouth had dropped open halfway through her sentence. His only response was a small "huh".

Feeling a little daring, she continued. "If that didn't surprise you enough, it may interest you to know that I've seen your ship. At least, I think I have. Menacing, black, a mermaid on the front?"

The curve of her lips, parted in the orange light, the sizzling excitement in her eyes... _she'd seen his ship?_

"And where does a lady... _woman_ such as yourself see pirate ships?"

At his correction, her eyes crinkled up at the corners with her smile. "When I was about ten, I was sailing from England to here, and we came upon a shipwreck, rescued a young boy who now works here as a blacksmith. It was then, just past the shipwreck, that I saw the ship disappearing through the smoke."

 _His ship…_

"The...the mermaid...it's a symbol of love, by the way, the mermaid...funny, since mermaids prey on sailors...aye, I had a mermaid on the _Pearl_."

 _Flapped_ , he was. He sounded positively unraveled and it didn't suit him one bit. Revealing bits of himself and pieces of his mind to this _person_ that he'd only just met...but she had been quick to correct him that they'd met a few hours ago. _Wench_.

"Have you...ever _seen_ a mermaid?"

It was like looking into a box of curiosities, being here with him...watching his reactions to her questions, every transition in his face was fascinating to her.

The look he sent her was positively jester-like... _spicy_ , almost. A look of a man about to toy with someone. "Who said mermaids were real?"

 _Who said,_ indeed, Jack.

He was damnable.

"You implied just... _well_ , you said they prey on sailors. Naturally, I thought that maybe-"

"-the _myth_ is that they prey on sailors, love."

Pushing her lips together, she contemplated.

"And I suppose then that Davy Jones, cursed treasure, ghosts, and all of that are also _myths_?"

Something flashed in his eyes, her words had connected with something...another mystery of him, another path into the thicket of his mind...then he just smiled softly at her and wrapped his fingers around the bars of the cell. " _Perhaps_. I think all that matters, for you, is whether or not _you_ believe in them."

Her eyes narrowed a bit. "...Why?"

"Because," he said as his eyes twinkled with the flickering flame from the torch on the wall, "I doubt you are ever going to be _adventurous_ enough to find out for yourself."

 _Chew on that, darling_.

"I was adventurous enough to come down here to see you, was I not?"

... _true_.

"You're implying that coming down to a dirty jail to see a man sentenced to death is an _adventure?_ Sounds like a waste to me."

A look of confusion, and then sadness, passed through her face. _Interesting._

"...maybe it is. Maybe not...I-I actually came here to say _thank you_."

 _Among many other reasons that she hadn't quite admitted to herself yet._

 _Yes, you have. You just said in the bedroom that-_

 _-hadn't quite admitted that she had admitted it yet._

His face pulled back from the light, retreated into the shadow a bit, and it made her step closer instinctively to see better.

"... _thank you_?" The last time he had gotten a thank you for anything...well, actually he couldn't remember the last time.

 _Why did he sound suspicious?_

"It's not every day that a woman gets her life saved…"

"Women also don't fall from battlements every day either."

"They were saying that I was lucky I didn't hit the rocks-"

"-and they're right. You're also lucky that I'm a good swimmer."

She waited until he looked at her to fix him with a stare. "You could just say 'you're welcome' you know."

A tiny nearly imperceptible head shake from him…"That brings me to the wondering and questioning and actually thinking about why I saved you and what that says about me...much easier to just move on."

…"Move on? I wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't saved my life, and you just want to _move on_? Well excuse me, Captain Sparrow, but I want to talk about it-"

"-and I don't. You're going to start saying things that aren't true and getting it in your head that I'm a hero or some such ridiculous-"

"-you're not a hero, you're a pirate."

That stopped him with a sharp intake of breath. The suddenness and absolute certainty in her declaration...she sounded _proud_.

"Pirates are better than heroes are they?"

The sparkle was back in his eyes.

"I think calling someone a hero oversimplifies them. It's a facade. No one is _just_ a hero."

"Then why did you thank me?"

Her head tilted to the right a little. "What do you mean?"

"How do you know that I deserve thanks?"

"I just got through telling you that I-

"-ah, yes, that you wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for me." He paused to wrap his hand around the bar again, pointing a teasing finger at her. "But, how do you know what my motives were?"

"Why don't you just tell me?"

"You're the one doing the interrogating, darling."

 _What was this, some kind of standoff?_

" _I'm not interrogating you!"_

 _That_ got a snort out of him.

"Elizabeth, love, you've been trying to silently pry into my head since you came down here. You're _curious_."

Maybe she was.

Maybe she was so curious that he was all she could think about.

"Why did you save me?"

 _Don't retreat, Jack._

He watched her for a moment, his gaze bouncing around her face.

"...they couldn't swim."

 _Safe enough answer._

It was out of her mouth before she had even realized she had stepped closer to wrap her fingers around the bars too. "You're lying."

 _Why was he enjoying this so bloody much?_

At first, she thought he was angry with the way darkness passed over his face, but then he raised an eyebrow and fixed her with a look of challenge.

" _Prove it._ "


	4. Lucky Guess

_**Chapter 4! I love writing their banter in this. Read and review! 3**_

* * *

For a long moment, long enough to hear several rounds of bell ringing outside, reverberating through the dark night, she let it roll around in her head, a dangerous phrase for a woman like her... _prove it_. He barely knew her, he had said as much himself... _she barely knew him_ , and yet here they were, like two seasoned card players, slinging words and challenges back and forth.

 _Prove it_.

Defensive, a great black wall dropped behind those two words...that was the real challenge. Climbing it, that wall, to see the next challenge behind it, and the one after that, and after that...he didn't think she could do it, and as his eyes burned in the darkness, burning into her own steady gaze, she realized that somewhere inside, he _wanted_ her to prove him wrong.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Captain Sparrow...but aren't pirates creatures of survival?"

"The smart ones are, aye."

"And would you consider yourself a smart pirate?"

" _Would you?"_

His mouth twitched back and forth in a smirk that couldn't decide whether it was coming or going.

"Considering recent events, I would say not."

Carefully watching his reactions, she noted that his eyes narrowed as his head tilted forward a little.

"Do explain, love. However, I'll warn you to choose your words carefully."

Close enough to inch her head a bit forward and kiss him, she noticed. She was strangely fine with that.

"A bit sensitive, are we?

"Allow me to remind you, as we have already discussed, that without _me_ , you would be a pile of dress and bones on the bottom of the ocean."

"Would be, yes, but that doesn't matter anymore, since I doubt there is going to be another event where you can flaunt your heroics."

" _Heroics?"_ he scoffed, barking out a laugh. "I hope that isn't your tactic, making me out to be some white knight in shining armor."

 _Him_ , a hero. What a repulsive thought.

"No, but you are _something_."

They locked eyes, hers sparkling like the embers in dying firewood, his hidden in a shroud of shadow.

"...Go on."

 _Smile, assume a serious stance, turn away…_

In the end of her seconds-long deliberation, she settled on the smile.

"What are you here for, Captain Sparrow?"

"A drink, some sightseeing, and I even thought about kidnapping a governor's daughter once or twice. I decided it was too much of a risk."

 _Hah_.

"Was your plan to sightsee the inside of a jail cell?"

"No-"

"Or perhaps to sightsee the inside of a blacksmith's shop?"

"Well-"

"Or maybe sightsee the inside of the governor's daughter's bedroom?"

"I wish-"

"The bottom of the ocean? Commodore Norrington?

"That pile of powder and stockings? God, no-"

She stopped short, arching an eyebrow at him. "Oh, he's not that bad."

"He tried to kill me!"

 _Probably not the first person, she mused._

"So have plenty of other people, I'm sure."

"Well, none of them had quite the same self-righteousness about it."

His fingers tapped on a bar, _tap, tap, tap_...he looked like he was trying not to fidget. The corner of his mouth puckered and twisted...he was chewing on the inside, and he was staring at her again with that calculating gaze.

" _What?_ "

He smiled a little at her sharp tone.

"You...didn't _really_ want to marry Norrie did you? I mean...sure, social security, you get to wear pretty dresses whenever you want, drink tea, lay back and think of England every night...but please don't tell me that you actually _wanted_ all of that?"

" _How did you know-"_

"Lucky guess."

The damn pirate already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear her say it.

"Lay back and think of England? Not every man is inept with women-"

"No, no, actually they pretty much all are."

"My _point_ , Captain Sparrow, is that...is that, _well_ , is that I'm sure Commodore Norrington would have made a fine husband."

He turned and started to pace back and forth, a maddening thing to watch him do. It made her feel on _edge_.

"I agree with you, love. But...there is a difference between something being _fine_ , and something being _wanted._ For example...I am sure that many ships," he turned and pointed out of the little window, wagging his finger back and forth, "out _there_ are just fine to sail on...but none of them are my _Pearl_."

"We're equating people to ships now?"

An offended look crossed his face.

"Oh, no, definitely not. Ships are far more important."

Her mouth dropped open a little, but she recovered quickly.

"So, let me get this straight. You came here to... _what_ , commandeer a ship?"

"Aye, that _was_ the plan, until your future husband saw fit to become _inconvenient_."

"Right...but from what I can gather, you were well on your way to taking a ship...until…"

She stopped, wanting the satisfaction to linger within her chest for a second longer.

"Until _what_?"

"Until I fell. See...you could have just ignored me, but you decided to wave your commandeering goodbye, _and_ risk your life just to save me."

"Are we back to complaining that I saved your life?"

" _No_ , we are back to proving that you did it for reasons other than _they couldn't swim._ "

His eyes narrowed like a hawk...but he didn't say a word.

"I'll take your silence as agreement. I think you saved... _no_ , I _know_ you saved me because you're a good man."

"A good- _oh_ , for the love of God, I'm a bloody pirate."

"I know."

This time, he turned completely away from her as though she was the sun and he had been staring directly at it for too long.

"Pirates aren't _good_."

"...Yes, we have an entire area of the fort dedicated to that very notion, complete with a rope and an executioner."

"And several dangling pirate skeletons on the way in."

"I hope you saluted them."

"I did, in fact...but you think _I'm_ good?"

"I _know_ you are."

"So...I will take that as a no to marrying Norrington, then."

"You...what?"

"Well, there is no way that you could possibly be happy with him when he wants to _hang me_...not when you are so hell bent on proving that I don't deserve the noose."

"You sound like you want me to marry you instead."

His head whipped around followed by the rest of his body. " _Marry me_? I would hang _myself_ in the gallows before I made the foolish mistake of _marrying anyone._ "

Why did she suddenly feel disappointed by that?

"...Oh."

"Oh," he mocked.

She started to play with one of the bars, drawing shapes and lines on it. "...You seem...awfully _blaise_ about dying for this."

"For what, dragging you out of the ocean? Actually, I am a little vexed about it. I hardly think that is a reason to _kill me_. But in case you didn't notice, I have twenty-three iron reasons to not waste my time worrying about something I can't change."

"So, what, you are just going to lay down your weapons and surrender... _just like that_?"

"In case you forgot, my _weapons_ are out there, with you-"

"-It was a figure of speech-"

"-And unless you have the ability to pry open iron bars, I see no escape plan."

 _No,_ she couldn't pry open iron bars…

...but she didn't _want_ him to die.

She barely knew him, had only been speaking with him for a half hour at the most, but felt like if he died...a piece of her would hang with him.

"You can't," she stated plainly and firmly.

"I can't? Can't what?"

"Die."

He stared at her for a long moment then, studying her. Only when she cleared her throat did he speak again.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, love, but we all die eventually."

"Well, _yes_ , but you can't die now. Not like this."

Couldn't pry open bars...but she _could_ start a fire.

"Miss Swann...you need to come to terms with-"

"-No. I'll return in an hour."

"You're being reckless. I don't know how, or why, but please don't do something stupid."

Wrapping her night robe around herself and tying it, she looked at him over her shoulder. "I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were-"

"-Like I _said_ , I'll return in an hour."

She made it all the way to the archway leading into the hall, before his voice rang out again.

"Miss Swann."

Turning halfway, she peered at him in the darkness. "Hm?"

"You're welcome."


End file.
